A decade ago, or more, I worked in a clothing store called Roots. It's a Canadian retail chain, selling shoes, jackets, sweatshirts, you name it. My single least-favorite experience working there was when a very nasty woman came in with her barely-tolerant, eye-rolling teenage daughter. The woman was furious at all of us for the fact that the tongue inside her 6-month old pair of lace-up boots kept sliding over to one side when she walked.

She went on and on about it, in a way that only a true neurotic would do. Now I have no real skills in fixing boots. I'm not a cobbler. But I looked at it, and instead of sending her down to the shoe repair guy - on Roots' nickel, of course - I said I thought I could probably fix it myself. We were always taking up needle and thread to fix little things, if we thought we could do it, just to keep the customer happy. Clothing stores used to do this, back in 'the day', you know.

So I went to the back storeroom and started to toil away over this smelly boot of hers. Out front I could hear her talking to one of the staff girls. She'd calmed down now, just a bit.

"Yeah, Marc's really good at fixing things like this. I'm sure he'll be able to get it to turn out just right," the staffer said.

The neurotic laughed and said, "Oh really? Does he knit too?" and she chuckled away.

There isn't a shoe equivalent of serving a sneezer, or at least if there is, I wasn't aware of it. But holy shit, was a sneezer ever warranted for that comment. I was really pissed because all I was obliged to do was to point her to the shoe repair guy and say, "buh-bye, have a nice day" but instead, I actually provided service.

So I fixed the boot, brought it back out, she tried it on giving a grimace of faint approval as her tender little foot wiggled around inside it, testing for flaws in my craftsmanship.

"Oh I'll be back, I promise, if the tongue slides around again. I will, you know. I really will."